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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Sex Fest event educates students on condom use

Yaolun Wu, center, and Zhipeng Gu challenge the one minute condom game during the "Sex Fest" event hosted by Willkie and Teter Residence Centers Saturday. They filled four balls into the condom in one minute carefully. Gu said that they came to this event for their human sexuality class.

Condom Stuffing participants had 60 seconds to push more golf balls into a condom than their partner could Saturday evening as part of the sexual education initiative Sex Fest.

The game’s purpose was to teach proper condom usage and to exemplify condoms’ effectiveness, said organizer Genevieve Labe, assistant resident manager for Willkie Quadrangle, where the event was held.

At the start of each round, the participating pair was instructed on the correct way to open the condom and how to dispose of it after.

The record was 27 golf balls, proving a man’s size isn’t a valid excuse to go without a condom or use one that is too large, Labe said.

This was the first year of Sex Fest, which consists of daily events March 23-29.

It was started by Willkie resident assistants who saw a need for more extensive sexual education on campus, Labe said.

“Sex is a really taboo subject for a lot of people,” said Hannah Thomason, an event organizer and sophomore Willkie resident assistant. “Whether you’re having sex or not, having comprehensive education and an understanding surrounding topics of sex is really important as a part of human society.”

The organizers focused specifically on alternative topics, such as drag and sex toys, Labe said.

Monday night’s drag show will give some IU students their first experience in performing drag and allow others to work on their performance style, Labe said.

There will also be a silent auction to benefit Positive Link, which performed free STI testing last Wednesday for Sex Fest. The show begins at 9 p.m. in the Willkie 
Auditorium.

The show will be the big event that will continue in the future, Labe said.

Tuesday night’s event will address sex toys and safe words from employees of Lovers Playground, a Bloomington sex store. It is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Willkie Formal Lounge.

Labe said she was inspired to begin the festival after a colleague suggested an event about bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism.

“Everyone should feel empowered to explore their own sexuality but also learn how to do it in a safe way because people are doing it, but they might not know how to do it safely,” Labe said.

The organizers were unsure of the reaction Sex Fest would receive, but the events have been exciting and fun, Labe said. Events earlier in the week included slam poetry and a question-and-answer with a sexual health expert.

“The amount of turn-up that has come from this single event shows that people are eager to learn, and they’re eager to come to events like this, and it shows that we need more events like this,” she said.

Drawing any amount of students to the events means there is a need for alternative sexual education that cannot be found elsewhere on campus, Labe said.

“People are really enjoying that they are becoming safer, and they’re getting more empowered to be comfortable with their own sexuality,” she said. “I don’t think there is ever too much sexual education.”

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